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IBM Wins Most Patents In a Single Year For 2008

Posted by timothy on from the that's-a-lot-of-paperwork- dept.

eldavojohn writes "You might have heard or felt that there is little left to patent these days but IBM begs to differ. They came in at over four thousand for the year of 2008. Now, this isn't a good metric to measure success or progress but for those of you who like to keep track: 'IBM said it earned 4,186 U.S. patents in 2008, more than triple the number of patents earned by rival Hewlett-Packard. Microsoft Corp earned 2,030 patents, while Intel Corp had 1,776 and Hewlett-Packard 1,424, according to the report, which compiled data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics had the second-highest number of patents at 3,515.' You can find the original source of this study here as well as 2007's data and even 2006's data."

3 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Weird by Idiomatick · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IBM/Samsung make THINGS so that makes sense. How did MS get so many? They don't make any THING aside from xbox. You think the divide would be alot bigger than it is.

    1. Re:Weird by mdf356 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Federal Circuit recently ruled en banc that if your patent doesn't involve specific physical things, it's not actually patentable. So at the moment any software not tied to a specific hardware device is invalid again.

      What Congress does with this will be interesting to see. They were taking up patent reform several times in the last session. Probably half or more of IBM's patents are on software methods.

      --
      Terrorist, bomb, al Qaeda, nuclear, yellowcake, kill, assassinate. Carnivore is dead... long live Echelon.
  2. Re:Doesn't maintaining patents cost money? by Prof.Phreak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If we make maintaining patents cost prohibitive to a company like IBM, who does that benefit?

    How about letting the patent holder determine how much it is worth, and then -they- have to pay a... property tax (or something) on that every year to maintain it. Maybe waive the fee for the first year or two. The catch is that if they say it's worth $1billion, they have to pay tax on -that-. Yet if they say it's worth $1, their tax goes away, but any future lawsuits they initiate concerning the patent would be similarly worthless (ie: ``you're infringing on my $1 patent, pay up!'').

    That would eliminate corps sitting on patents and not doing anything with them...

    --

    "If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy